


your hand in my hand (so still and discreet)

by Ro29



Series: "Be the Rarepair content you want to see in the world" [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: CT-6116 | Kix Needs A Hug, Coric is great and i love him, Established Relationship, He lives!!!, Hurt CT-7567 | Rex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Serious Injuries, a bit of angst, but not well described, i promise!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27527767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: Kix’s hands do not shake.
Relationships: CT-6116 | Kix/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: "Be the Rarepair content you want to see in the world" [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022017
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	your hand in my hand (so still and discreet)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Everything_or_Anything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everything_or_Anything/gifts).



> Im just lksjdlksjdf i love them
> 
> title is from 'in a week' by hozier.
> 
> Medical inaccuracies _eveywhere_
> 
> also i.....didn't read this over so I'm so sorry if it doesn't make sense jsjlkfjsdjf

Kix’s hands do not shake.

Not when he sees Rex first go down. Not when none of them are able to reach Rex and they have to hope he doesn’t bleed out or die of something else on this forsaken planet in their own _kriffing base_ before they can get to him. Not even when they finally get through the attacking Seppies and reach him and Kix has to hold his Captain’s blood in his _karking_ body as Coric rushes to both return fire and open the bacta and bandages Kix needs.

He’s a medic, his hands are steady and sure even when he is not, he can’t afford for them to be any less.

Especially not when the Captain’s breath is getting shallower by the minute and the _fucking_ Seppies are still kicking and busy blasting their holdout. He curses under his breath, feels a little vindicated when he hears an explosion followed by a ‘whoop’ he can guess is Hardcase.

The vindication fades back to worry as Rex’s eyes slip closed, and he lets the terror grip his heart for less than a second before shoving it viciously away, leaving it for later, when the Captain is out of the danger zone and _stable_.

Because he’ll live through this, Rex _will_ live through this, Kix has to believe that. Just like he always does.

(He’s been called naive before, and maybe he is, but he has to believe that anyone he begins to help will make it through until it’s clear he can do no more to help them.

He’s always cared too much, and he’s had _vod_ die in his arms before, far too many times. He knows the reality, but he has never done well with feeling useless, being unable to help. He knows himself too well, knows if he ever went into something without thinking he can save this one, can save them, he would crumble a little.

They all have their own ways of dealing with war.)

He curses again, moves quickly as he sticks the bacta-patches on, preps the bandages, “Captain,” he says, voice hard and demanding, “ _eyes on me._ ”

Rex grunts, and it takes too long, takes _far_ too long, but eventually he’s eyes open and Kix breathes, feels relief deep in his bones for all of a second as he wraps the wound as tight as he can without crushing the ribs.

Rex chokes out a laugh, “Caught me without my armour, _fucking clankers_.”

Coric snorts, shoots out another clanker, “Think they caught a lot of us without armour sir, so you aren’t alone in that. Karking ambushes, _damn it all to sith-hells.”_ Coric spits, lets out another string of curses as he pushes Kix down.

The blaster bolt flies over them and Coric snarls, shoots the clanker out with prejudice as Kix struggles up while trying to keep the Captain from marching on ahead just yet.

Coric hands him another opened bacta patch, Kix grabs it and they share a snarled, “ _Fucking Seppies_.” Before Kix turns and takes care of the other places the shrapnel managed to get the Captain.

Who even _uses_ shrapnel bombs anymore?

_‘Apparently’_ , Kix thinks bitterly, as he picks the metal out of the wounds and smears bacta on the ones he can’t let stay open if he wants the Captain to stay alive, ‘ _the fucking Seps do_.’

The only good part about this is that he’d had a scanner in his med pack and wasn’t just flying blind and hoping to the Force or whatever else there was that he’d gotten all the shrapnel before applying the bacta.

He flicks his eyes up to Rex’s face, feels his heart pound and leap to his throat when he sees Rex’s eyes closed again.

He breathes, keeps his breaths steady and even, and reaches a hand up to Rex’s face.

“Okay Captain,” he says, and his voice is steady despite the way he’s trying to keep himself from thinking the worst, “you’re doing great, Sir, but I _need_ you to keep those eyes of yours open for me.”

Rex makes a quiet sound of acknowledgment, but doesn’t move or open his eyes. The breath leaves Kix’s lungs and he can feel the urgent fear rushing through him, his heart pounding loud in his ears. When he speaks, his voice goes hard, because the only other option is his voice shaking and he can’t afford that right now.

“ _Sir_.”

Rex shifts slightly, turns his head to the side and back slowly, as if he was trying to shake himself back to awareness but was fighting against some heavy weight.

Kix’s hands do not shake.

Even though he feels like he is having his heart crushed and his breath stolen, his hands do not shake.

He inhales slowly, ignores the hitch in his breath and steadies himself, slips into the calmer mindset that makes it easier to breathe, to keep himself uncompromised and make the best decision for the situation.

He reaches a hand up, cups Rex’s cheek and says again, “ _Sir_ ” as his other hand moves quickly to find a pulse, finds one, thready but there, and the part of his mind that is all gentle worry and fear settles a little.

Rex’s breath stutters and his eyes open, ever so slowly. Kix breathes and it is relief tinged with concern.

“There you are Sir, that’s it, just keep those pretty eyes open for me, alright?” He says, voice soft and measured as he runs the scanner over Rex again. Finds that everything is taken care of as much as it can be, and that Rex is as stable as he’s going to get where they are and with what supplies they have. Feels, for maybe the hundredth time over the course of this whole kriffing cluster, a thread of relief.

Rex laughs, an aborted thing that turns into a low groan of pain. Kix places a gentle hand to his shoulder, rummages through his pack for a dosage of pain meds.

Coric fires off a final shot and ducks back down, gives both Kix and Rex a once over, signs quickly, _injuries, question._

Kix flicks back just as fast, ‘ _multiple, declarative, all-clear, good to move, declarative’._

Coric nods, “Alright, I don’t know how much longer we have until those clankers push through to us so we should get going now while the General has them distracted.”

Kix nods, turns to look down at Rex, “Okay Sir, I’m going to give you something for the pain and then we’re going to move you understood?”

Rex huffs softly, rasps, “Yes, Sir.”

Kix snorts, “If you’re going to be cheeky Sir, I should remind you I have a witness and will be entirely willing to keep in mind you’ve acknowledged my higher rank the next time you go longer than a day without sleep.”

Because there _would_ be a next time, and Rex _would_ get through this alive and Kix will be able to nag him when he starts to not take care of himself or forgets to give himself a break. Will be able to bunk down with him and kiss him and continue to be irritated by the little things he does specifically because he knows they annoy Kix.

_Separation_ , Kix reminds himself, _focus on the task at hand. Worry about the man now, be terrified for your cyare later._

(It’s a line he has to draw, is usually successful with drawing.)

Rex huffs another quiet laugh, murmurs, “No idea what you mean,” his eyes go hazy as Kix injects the hypo and his remaining words are slurred, “said n’thing of,” Rex blinks slowly, hums, “n’thing of the sort.”

Kix runs his thumb over Rex’s cheek, waits for a little longer until the hypo takes full effect and nods to Coric.

They lift him as carefully as they can and move further inwards of the base. The journey is slow as they pause to duck under cover and return fire every so often and stumble upon injured _vod_ who need care.

Some of them are too far gone already and both Coric and Kix know it, they can only do what they can to ease their suffering, despite how much they wish they could help. Other’s they patch up and are able to help them along with them to the center of the base. By the time they make it they have seven more men who are in good enough shape to stand on their own or by leaning on each other and another five being helped along, plus Rex.

It’s just as they make it to the middle of the base, now heavily fortified as the rest of the 501st falls back, that Rex’s breathing suddenly goes rough. Kix is busy trying to stop Flicker from walking by themself when they have a broken ankle and only realizes when Coric curses as he reaches to check Rex’s pulse. He looks up to Kix with a tight expression and Kix breathes, shoulders more of Rex’s weight and rushes to the hastily set up medbay.

They don’t have a bacta tank here, which is what Rex really needs, so they have to make do. The bacta patches did all they could but some of the shrapnel must have nicked _something_ that neither the scanner nor Kix caught because Rex is slowly getting worse. Kix lets himself curse viciously as he grabs for one of the higher tech scanners, stops as Coric pushes him away.

“Kix—” Coric starts and Kix fights down the instinctive rage that comes.

“No, Coric, let me do this, I can do this.”

Coric nods, “I know, but you’re needed elsewhere, let me take care of this.”

Kix needs to be useful, it’s a part of him, a fact of his entire being since he was a Little and first starting his lessons on medtrack. He needs to be useful, but right now he is needed in too many places.

Needs to be able to help Rex and see that through, both to keep him alive and to sate the fear within himself. Needs to keep as many of the men alive as he can when they’re short medics right now.

He closes his eyes, makes his choice and nods once. Coric’s hand grips his forearm and squeezes, reassuring “I got this, go.”

Kix goes, he has a duty to do.

* * *

Later, after they manage to defend themselves and fend the Seppies off and things have settled down enough that Kix has time to breathe, he goes to see Rex.

He’s sleeping, knocked out from pain meds and his middle is covered in bacta patches, but he’s alive and breathing and Kix is light-headed with relief.

He breathes, watches the rise and fall of Rex’s chest and feels like his own chest will burst. Both wants to curl up beside Rex and doesn’t want to touch him for fear of waking him despite the improbability of it.

He moves on quiet feet, brushes a thumb gently across Rex’s cheek, places a kiss on his forehead and stays like that for a second, breath hitching as he imagines losing this and feels like he might drown. Pushes the feeling and image away and reminds himself that he didn’t lose this, that Rex is alive and breathing right in front of him.

He already knows he will not be sleeping well tonight.

Coric made him sign off though, once enough of the troops were cleared that he could justify it with the shortage of medics they currently have.

He settles in a chair near the bed instead, contents himself with keeping watch and making sure the steady rise and fall of Rex’s chest doesn’t stop. Holds Rex’s limp hand in his own warm one and stays like that until his vision blurs and he drifts off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I love them and I want to hug them and also give them good things. I am......very tired still. oops ALSO i didn't have to create this tag and that makes me so happy lkfjksdjkj i love.
> 
> If you want to find me other places I have a [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and a [fandom tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC!


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